


Five Times Skye Headbutted Someone (And One Time It Didn't Go Well)

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Sexual Assault, Backstory, Bar Fight, Coulson is a smirking flirting bastard, F/M, Female Friendship, Future Fic, Grant Ward is canonically a creepy villain so I write him that way, I WILL WRITE ALL THE SKYE FICS, Kissing, Orphanage, POV Skye, Pre-Canon, Skye and her Huge Crush on Coulson, Skye centric, Skye gets to have what she wants, Skye has had a hard life, i still care way too much about Skye and May bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:44:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye has this one trick up her sleeve - and she uses it on momentous occasions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Skye Headbutted Someone (And One Time It Didn't Go Well)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was born out of watching "Nothing Personal" and realizing Skye's headbutting technique was excellent - it occurred to me she must have done it before. Hence more self-indulgent, Skye-centric fic.
> 
> WARNING: Part Two deals with an attempted sexual attack or coercion. It's meant to be more uncomfortable (because of ordinary) than disturbing or graphic but you're warned.

**one**

Jessica makes a sound of surprise before a bit of blood starts trickling down her nose, some sort of ugly squeaking.

Everybody is freaked out by that, the noise and the blood, everyone except Skye who just stands there in the middle of the playground, not looking satisfied or gleeful, just a cold stare towards the group gathering around her victim. Skye wouldn't say her rage has subdued in any way (blood is not enough, she thinks with a kid's flair for the dramatic), but at least it has turned into something colder and more manageable for the time being.

She's twelve and she is copying something she saw in a movie. 

"How can you do something so horrible to such a sweet kid?" one of the nuns asks afterwards, grabbing her arm and dragging her to the main building.

She knows the truth. Jessica is not sweet. Jessica is a horrid monster with blond hair and super pale skin. She can fool everybody but not Skye. It's no use trying to unmask her in front of the whole orphanage, though, and by the time the other women call in Sister Rita to sort it out Skye knows it's a lost cause – she doesn't want to sound paranoid but Sister Rita has had it in for Skye since the dawn of time. There will be no telling her version of the events.

Skye sits in the woman's office and listens to her rant about what a bad, spoiled girl she is for what seems like ages. These little chats were entertaining at first, when Skye was nine and Sister Rita's words could still actually hurt her.

"Don't you understand, Mary? This is the reason why not one family has wanted to keep you," Sister Rita finishes.

Skye is not even surprised by the accusation. She's heard it before. She's been hearing it since she came back from her third foster home – when none of the nuns believed she hadn't done anything wrong. It must be somehow your fault, they said, because there was no other explanation.

"So you have nothing to say for yourself. That's certainly a surprise."

Skye bites the inside of her cheek but keeps on looking at her with neutrality, boredom even.

There's no trying to convince Sister Rita of the righteousness of her cause (and Skye knows it is righteous). She could tell her that Jessica pretty much deserved the headbutt and worse, for being a thief and a liar and a phony, for stealing Skye's red and gold necklace, the one Kara (her fourth foster mother, and Skye's favourite, or the one she still cries about anyway) bought for her in an arts and crafts fair during the summer Skye spent with her, in that tiny northeast town that always smelled of trees and fleece. Jessica had taken the necklace from Skye's room (Skye can't wait to be a grown up and have her own place – with locks on the doors!) and then she had smashed it into pieces in the backyard. And since Skye was the only witness it was her word against Jessica's. She knows how much her word is worth. She knows exactly how it would play out, if she told the nuns why she had tried to break Jessica's perfect little nose. So she shuts up and takes the punishment (no dinner tonight, no play time with everybody in the common room for the rest of the week).

"If you keep this up," Sister Rita tells her, "you're going to end up in a much worse place than this."

I doubt such a thing exists, Skye tells herself but not out loud. She waits it out until they let her go back to her room. She's twelve and this is the year " _pick your battles_ " becomes her motto for a while. The battle with Jessica in the playground, though, that one was totally worth it.

 

 

**two**

She's nineteen and this was supposed to be a nice night out at a music festival with friends.

So far it's pretty much going okay – she won't get to hear the rest of the setlist but here she is in Dale's car, making out with Dale. He is insanely hot, by far the hottest guy in their group of friends. He's also insanely tall, so tall that even sitting he has to crane his neck to reach down and access Skye's mouth.

It's really nice for a while, just making out in his awesome car (with heating, very important in this time of the year and this place) while they can still hear the music from the concert arena, but muffled, like in a dream. She gets to tangle her fingers in Dale's blond curls and that has been a fantasy of hers for a bit.

But after they've been at it for a while and the novelty wears off (he is handsome but to be fair there's not much more to Skye's feelings regarding him, he falls somewhere between friend and friend of a friend) she starts to wish they'd drive into town already and meet the others for dinner. Also because she's hungry.

She tries to slow the kissing down until she can break it off but Dale only grows more enthusiastic, and he is kind of trying to feel her up, Skye thinks, and she has to maneuver a bit, not really subtle, to avoid that. His curls are starting to tickle her on the cheek and it's kind of annoying. And she's... to be honest Skye is not in the mood for anything more complicated than making out and she thought Dale knew that. She just broke up with her boyfriend a couple of weeks ago and even though she's young and impulsive to a criminal extent she is not about to jump into bed (or whatever, she's not feeling it, giving Dale any other alternative that involves seeing his dick, she knows how it goes) with another person so soon, no matter how hot they are.

Dale's fingers move up quickly, darting up along her thigh. Skye grabs his hand.

"Shouldn't we be getting back already?" she says lightly. "The others will be waiting."

"What?"

"I'm not – I thought we were just going to kiss."

"Yeah right."

He kisses her neck. She grabs his arms, trying to gently pull him away. He sort of gets the hint this time and looks up and back at her.

"I'm serious, Dale. I want to go get food. We said we were going to get burgers at Pablo's."

"You're not serious. Skye, I know you."

What's that's supposed to mean? She wonders, but doesn't really want to know. It's not like Dale knows her at all. The longest conversation they've ever had was about the music of Josh Rouse. He doesn't even know she hacks (no one in this town does). And alarms have gone off in her head, because he should have already put the key in the ignition and just left her alone. Alarms have gone off and Skye knows she has a very sensitive set of them but it's better than the other option.

"I'm hungry," she tells him. "You either drive me to have dinner with the rest of our friends _now_ or I walk there myself."

She doesn't really have to venture into the freezing Oregon night but she will if he keeps it up. Better frozen than sorry is her new motto.

"We'll meet them... in just a little while." He's trying to sound suggestive and Skye has to stop herself from making a grimace of disgust.

His hand is not leaving her hip and she is losing the little patience she has.

"When a girl says she wants a burger she means it, dude. Plus you said you _just_ wanted to make out."

"Come on, you know what I meant."

"No, I don't. We left the concert because you said, literally, let's go back to my car and make out, just make out. I remember the _just_ very clearly."

"But you knew what I meant," he says, mouth all twisted in a whine.

"Dale, I'm not a mind reader."

"Okay," he says, with a silly smile. "So next time you know what it means."

There's not going to be a next time with you, Skye reflects. 

Under normal circumstances she might have been convinced to let things progress further. Sex is not big deal, at the end of the day, not for her. But he is being a super douchebag about the whole thing, and he's making a girl uncomfortable here and that's uncalled for, in _any_ circumstance.

And he's still kissing her fucking neck so.

She shoves him off.

"You just graduated from annoying jerk to major creep," she says.

Dale lets out a long, irritated growl. Yeah, like he is the one with the right to be irritated. Skye can feel the old, familiar rage rising like bile in her stomach, pounding blood in her ears. She wants to do something drastic and irreversible to this guy.

Amazingly enough he is still talking, still trying to get into her pants.

"Don't play innocent with me, Skye. I'm friends with Casey. You slept with him in the first date."

That's guy logic for you, she thinks. She raises an eyebrow.

"And because I slept with Casey on the first date I'm going to sleep with you in... wait, this isn't even a date. You should have bought me food before complaining."

"Come on, Skye, I won't hurt you."

She snorts. "Yeah, that's not going to be a problem here."

There's not really room to maneuver in this car but when the jerk grabs her shoulder with intent again Skye reacts on instinct and just smashes her forehead against his face.

There's no blood this time and for a moment Skye thinks she's done it wrong. It didn't hurt her either, just a bit of a palpitation under the skin, and maybe the prelude of a headache. Then there's Dale's face of pain and indignation, which means she's done it exactly right – which is worth the ticket.

"Ohfuckinghellareyoucrazy?" he asks, holding his nose.

But Skye is already grabbing her bag and opening the passenger's door. 

He scrambles to grab at her again but she's faster. "Hey, hey! You broke my fucking nose."

She frowns at him. Is he a complete moron? Does he even know how much it hurts when you break a bone? Because Skye knows.

"That's the least of your pains," she tells him through the half open car door. "Because Dale, there's a little thing called social media and then there's me, and I'll be making sure no girl in the state will go near your dick, _ever_."

So the trip northwest is over. The sliver of safety between passing places is over. The solid ground of friends and friends' couches and pillaging friends' fridges while they are in class is over. She's on her own again.

Skye doesn't care.

She's used to burning bridges. Specially if they _deserve_ to be burnt.

This town was already done for her, anyway, had been for some time. She spends the night hacking into Dale's accounts and the next morning she buys a train ticket somewhere, she doesn't care where, somewhere south, somewhere _warm_.

 

 

**three**

She's been in (or around) enough bar fights to know that freaking people out is the fastest way to break them up and stop the situation from descending into further mayhem (depending on the bar further mayhem can get very, very ugly). At first being involved in a situation like this one felt very scary to Skye (she's impulsive, not reckless, and she's living in the not-nice part of town out of necessity, not bravery), until she learned to read the signs of it, and navigate the patterns. Life is safer when you know the exploit. And it's not like she's actually come to blows with anyone but she has learned that hiding from a fight is sometimes as dangerous as... trying to headbutt a dude twice your size.

She doesn't hurt the guy too badly –she doesn't mean to, that wasn't the point, she could but she doesn't– just enough to leave him confused and a little bit spooked. It wins her a " _crazy bitch_ " (yawn , predictable) but the _crazy_ part prevents any further attempts at violence. That's how Skye and her friends avoid a mayor brawl and take back their usual table at the bar in the process. The bartender, who has a soft spot for the group of misfits with laptops and a thirst for tap beer, politely invites the other (older, nasterier-looking) guys to vacate the premises.

"It's not that I don't think you can't defend yourself," Skye tells Miles while his friends coo at him and he snorts. 

"Are you okay?" he asks her, examining the reddened spot on her forehead. "Why would you do something like that?"

"He grabbed my arm. And that other guy was going to punch you, it was justified."

"So this is what you are into?" Miles' friend Jackson asks when they are all back on their table and sharing a pitcher. "Violent girls?"

"Hey," Skye protests. "It's not really being violent is you use it against jerks."

"Is that so? Where did you learn to do that, anyway?" their other friend, Charlie with the cute glasses, asks her with a drawl.

"Catholic school."

"Ah," the three boys say at the same time.

"Yeah, you might be very good at cracking skulls," Miles says, and she already has a raised eyebrow for what might come next. "But you weren't able to crack that flimsy encryption the west side nerds came up with."

She looks away, furious with embarrassment.

She messed up last night's challenge, she knows that. It hurts her pride to know that. But Miles was with her and she was so distracted and trying very hard to impress him, to put to use all the tricks he's been teaching her this week. They've been kind of fooling around since Skye landed in town but she doesn't know where she stands, if he's merely curious about what she can do – she'd like to find out, and soon, because she has the most awful crush on him (she did even before they met face to face). But if he's not feeling the same she _needs_ to know, Skye is not into wanting things she can't have, or giving more than she gets in return.

Plus Miles is her friend, the first real friend in a long time, and for a change he actually knows how fucked up Skye is right now, in vivid detail, how fucked up she's been for the last year and a half. She thinks Miles is a bit like her, in that sense, and that is part of the pull he has on her, the fact that she sees a mirror. He's a lot sweeter than she is, and that also entices Skye.

She walks out of the bar, wanting some fresh air.

People are spilling on the street, talking with bottles of beer in their hands, a good Friday crowd.

She looks up at the stars. She loves the sky here, so different to anywhere else she's ever been, loves Texas in general, despite her sketchy neighborhood, despite the fact that she basically drove here because Miles told her to and that's breaking her very important rule of not letting guys ever make decisions for her. She can see herself staying in this town for a long time – if she doesn't mess it up, that is.

"It's nice outside," she says when Miles comes find her.

"Yeah. I guess. It's like this a lot of the time."

"Could get used to it."

"You could?" he asks.

"Why not?" she says, not wanting to commit. And anyway _why not?_ goes well with the image of the girl she projects. She isn't that girl, but lately she pretends so hard she forgets. That girl is bolder and aloof, unlike little scared Skye. 

"Hey. Sorry if I put you on the spot back there," Miles tells her. "I know how proud you are of your abilities."

"It's okay," she tells him. "It's natural that you feel threatened."

"Threatened?"

"You know last night was a fluke. I'm so much better at this than you."

"Oh you are, ain't you."

She flutters her eyelashes in parody, stand there looking at him, playing cute. "Yes, I am."

"We'll see," he says, bending down to kiss her. Skye tiptoes and meets him halfway. Maybe she's relying on stereotypes but he does kiss like you always dream a damn cowboy would kiss. She gets lost in it, twisting her hand into Miles' shirt, tasting beer in both their mouths.

She pulls away (she always pulls away first, just in case), arching an eyebrow and giving Miles what she hopes is a suggestive look.

"And apart from girls who break up bar fights... what are you into?"

" _This_ ," Miles says, kissing her again, gentler this time, as if to make a point.

Skye finally breathes. So now she knows. She throws her arms arund his neck. Miles holds her by the waist, almost lifting her up while he kisses her. 

When they break the kiss Miles' eyes are glazed over and shiny and his lips are red and Skye feels almost happy and almost normal.

"So what are _you_ into?" he asks.

Maybe he is not asking seriously but she will answer seriously, because she has never met anyone like Miles Lydon before and she wants to make that count.

"A certain way of taking on the world," she replies.

"That's deep, Skye." There's humor in his voice but he's not mocking her.

"Yeah, it is. Remember that post you wrote on our site last November, on freedom of information and communities at risk?" Miles nods. "When I read that, you wrote this thing about hacktivists being the people who have to look out for those no one else is looking out for... and when I read that I thought _wow_ , yeah, that's exactly the kind of person I'm looking for. Please don't tell me you were drunk or something when you wrote that and you really didn't mean it. That'd be embarrassing."

He looks at her. The most serious expression she has seen him in person. "No. I meant _every_ word."

Skye didn't think she'd end up falling for an idealist.

"Good."

"The kind of person you were looking for, uh?" he repeats.

Skye blushes a bit but keeps the eye contact. She means it, and maybe Miles won't laugh at her for it. She says: "I just want someone who cares about stuff." 

He bends over to kiss her for the third time.

"Your abs don't hurt, either," she adds.

Miles laughs against her mouth.

Yeah, Skye could see herself sticking around this town for a while.

 

 

**four**

He's the one who taught her to fight like this. 

Skye feels nauseous. All the movements she could use on him (and they will be hopeless, she knows, but she doesn't care) are the very movements she learned from him during their long, excruciating training sessions. When she punches him she punches him in the exact same way he showed her. The anger and hurt are all hers, but the way her fingers make a fist for better impact is Grant Ward's.

"You can't win," he tells her.

She's not an idiot (apparently she is, the whole team are idiots and he has made them this way), she knows she can't win. This is not about winning.

There are things he didn't teach him, though. Things he can't touch. There is so much she had to learn on her own. He doesn't know who she is.

He might have taught her almost everything she knows about fighting but when she headbutts him that is Skye. _All_ Skye. Fighting. He might have betrayed her but he can't take anything from her.

It doesn't even hurt but maybe that's the adrenaline.

Or maybe it's her absolute certainty that she is going to die today so this is not the time to care if headbutting a murderer is going to give her a headache later on. Because yeah, there will be no "later on". She's not going to decrypt that hard drive so Ward is going to shoot and kill her. And even if she were to decrypt the hard drive (which she isn't, _ever_ ) Ward would just shoot and kill her after she did, so anyway. At least she can die with the tiny satisfaction of knowing she has made him _bleed_. He deserves much more but his blood is a good start.

This is one of those times she wishes she were stronger, more like May essentially, so she could put up more of a fight – it's just so easy for Ward to slip the handcuffs on her despite her struggling, she feels so tiny and so frustrated, not just at the murderer in front of her but at her own uselessness in this situation, her bones are so brittle and her muscles so weak and he is so strong and his body so present and frightening. 

He can break her but he can't break the damn encryption so there's that.

It's not like she wants to die – and she knows what Coulson would say, that it's stupid to get killed for the hard drive but not for the first time Coulson would be wrong, she can't in good conscience let Garrett and Ward have that information, she doesn't know how many lives could be lost. But yeah Coulson would probably be furious at her and he would probably do that thing with the jaw he does when he's pissed off and maybe it's a good thing she'll be too dead to confront that. If only she could get out of this cuffs, she could do something, _anything_. If she were smart like FitzSimmons she'd come up with some insane plan to get out of the Bus (no, it's not the Bus right now, it's just a plane, while Ward is in command it could never be the Bus, their Bus). May would already be out. If Skye had enough strength to break her own wrist she could follow that example. It would be just a wrist, whatever. Mental note: if she ever gets out of here (which she won't) she's going to ask Agent May exactly how one does break her own wrist. 

It's been a long time since she wished she was someone else.

She's useless.

If she had been a bit quicker in her thinking, more like Coulson, she wouldn't have had to step into this plane with Ward, alone. She bets Coulson would have found away to keep him in the base, or maybe he would have found a way to stop Ward from killing Agent Koenig. Oh god _Eric_. She can't even think about him right now, because if she does she will shut down and this is not the time for shutting down – she knows she's going to get killed but at least she hopes to have enough mind to try and mess with Ward's plans before that happens. 

_You can't win_.

Well, she can't, but maybe the team can.

Yeah, the team, _the team_ , her team. Perhaps they are on their way to her right now. She's sure Fitz can figure out a way to track down the plane, he's the best at that kind of stuff. And her message, someone should have noticed it, right? These people are much smarter than she is, they are bound to notice. Or maybe they will find the body, Ward didn't hide it very well. 

Yes, yes, if the team is already on their way maybe there's enough time, maybe they'll find her before Ward...

Skye's head starts aching a bit, definitely feeling the hit.

That must mean she still has some hope of getting out of here alive.

 

 

**five**

Blood actually drips on to the mat and Skye is stunned, and terrified.

To make matters worse Coulson is laughing, which on top of being just plain weird it's not appropriate at all. 

"I'm sorry but. You should have seen your face," he says to May.

Forget appropriate, Coulson laughing is going to get Skye killed. Killed by May.

"Oh my god are you okay?" she asks. "I didn't mean to, but you told me to use _all_ my resources and you had me in that lock you know I hate and I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hit you."

"You didn't mean to hit me _in a fight_?" May asks in a tone that makes Skye feels like the world's biggest idiot.

"Does it hurt a lot?" she asks with apprehension.

May rolls her eyes at her. Skye knows that glare very well. She has been getting it almost every morning for the last three months.

"It was just a small blood vessel," May says. "Your move was too weak to break anything."

"I don't know," Coulson interrupts. "It didn't look weak from where I was standing. You went down."

Skye is going to positively kill her boss today. If she kills Coulson first maybe she can avoid being killed by May. It would be pure survival. Either way someone is getting killed and/or court-martialed today and all because May insisted on a _proper fight_ and Coulson insisted on witnessing it and Skye insisted on shutting her mouth when she knew, deep down, that combination of ideas was probably a bad idea.

May turns to Coulson. "You need to shut up right now."

He and Skye look at each other, in awe. May, on the other hand, seems completely unfazed by her own tone of insubordination.

"I thought you didn't do petty," Coulson says.

The look on May's face is... Skye doesn't like that look one bit.

"May, I'm so sorry. You told me to use every resource I could think about. And you were kicking my ass so, so much I couldn't think of anything else."

But May doesn't seem to be listening at all, gaze still fixed on Coulson, and dangerous. More blood starts coming out of her nose and she wipes it off with the back of her hand and a growl. Skye instinctively moves to help her but May stops her with one lifted hand.

"This is your fault," she tells Coulson.

"How is this my fault?" He still sounds a bit amused.

"You shouldn't be here, I told you. This is not a game, Coulson. I'm teaching her how to stay alive and you are distracting her."

He shrugs. "She didn't look distracted."

Skye crosses her arms.

"I love it when people talk about me like I'm not in the room, please go on, guys."

"Trying to impress you counts as being distracted," May says.

"Hey! I wasn't –" Skye starts.

"I don't think that's what happened," Coulson states, talking over her.

May fixes both of them with a hard stare.

"Either of you, just... bring me a towel."

They do that – well, Skye does that, glad not to be party to the death-stare contest going on with her superiors. May takes the towel and walks out of the training room without a further word, huffing while she presses the cloth against her still bleeding nose.

Coulson looks like he is about to say something to Skye but she raises an eyebrow as dramatically as she can and that seems to stop him.

Twenty minutes later she marches into May's room, laptop in her hands.

"What do you want?"

All this time training might not have turned Skye into a better agent, she doesn't know yet, but what it has taught her is not to be afraid, whenever May uses that tone.

Skye ignores the underlying threat and sits on the bed next to her.

She likes May's room. It's functional and minimalistic and like May could pack everything she needs in five minutes, which Skye admires, but it's also a warm room. She's even allowed to hang out here, occassionally, since May decided to take care of Skye's training. It's not like they are best buds or they are going to start braiding each other's hair but. May is a good thing in Skye's life and she's not going to mess it up. 

She catches her frowning methodically and by degrees, as if trying to check if moving her face causes her pain.

"Still hurts?" Skye asks guiltily.

" _Hurt_? Please."

She thinks she can detect the beginning of a smile when May turns to look at her. Skye moves her computer so May can see the website she was searching.

"So... these look good. Pick one of those."

"What is this?" May asks.

"They are mats... yoga mats. Or, you know, they could be tai chi mats. Or deathly training mats, even. Skye Torture Mats, how about that name?"

"I know what they are. Why are you showing them to me?"

"So you can pick the one you like most. And then I'll buy it for you. To replace the one I've just ruined."

"You don't have to do that," May says, which is nice, but she says it between her teeth so Skye is not so sure. She decides it's nice because May's expression softens for a moment.

"I kind of have to, actually. If you let me."

May just stares at her. Skye doesn't ever need to wonder how she and Coulson are such good friends, they both use pauses in the conversation as weapons, to make the enemy trip on their own. Skye will always, always trip. She can't really resist the bait. Not with Coulson, not with May.

Speaking of which, she feels responsible about the whole debacle.

"I am sorry, I wanted to tell you. I shouldn't have done... that... to you. But. Please don't take it out on Coulson. He really didn't mean it, when he laughed."

"I'm not – I'm not angry."

Okay, Skye thinks, except your Angry Face and your Not Angry Face are exactly the same.

"Good, good. Are you also... not angry with me? Because that would be cool and either way I'm totally buying you a new mat."

"I'm not angry at you either." Skye gives her a big give smile. May seems to hesitate. "It wasn't a bad move."

"What wasn't?"

"I did go down," the other woman tells her. "It was amateurish but it was effective, within the context of our fight. Where did you learn to hit like that?"

Skye doesn't really mind telling the truth in here, in May's room. "I copied it from a movie originally, I think. I was twelve the first time. I'm hopeless with my fists – as you know and have told me, repeatedly. This comes in handy in bar fights."

"Bar fights?" May asks. She might even look a tiny bit impressed. "There might hope for you."

"Did you just compliment me, S.O of mine?"

May snorts. That's okay. Skye knows it was a compliment, for sure, she doesn't need May to elaborate. May is prickly, no doubt about that, but Skye knows better now: May is strong, but not hard.

They might even look like actual friends, sitting on this bed, chatting quite casually. They might look like friends and maybe Skye is deluded but she actually thinks they are. Which is why it occurs to her that she can talk to May _like a friend_. She's kind of in dire need of one these days (she loves Simmons but there's no chance of Simmons understanding this) and this might be her chance.

"Did you really mean it?" Skye asks, lowering her voice and leaning a bit into her. "When you said I was trying to impress Coulson?"

May rolls her eyes. It's very different than when she did it in the training space. "I'm not doing this."

Skye knows exactly what she's not talking about. She wasn't wrong: May knows. Well, of course, she's her supervisor, she was bound to notice... stuff.

"Okay."

May takes a deep breath: "I'm not doing this but if I were this is what I'd say: when you asked for my help you said you wanted to be like me because I was a statue. I can do that. I can teach you how to be a statue and not the open book you are right now. But sometimes being a statue is not the best course of action."

Skye looks down at her hands. She fidgets with her silver bracelets. 

"No, I think in this case it is the best course of action, definitely. For sure." Then, brighter but just as honest: "And I know you're not a statue, I'm sorry I ever said that. Can we scratch that comment from the record please? I was being stupid and I didn't know better."

I didn't know you, Skye thinks.

May nods, accepting that apology at least.

She points at Skye's laptop. "I like the green mat. Buy me that one."

 

 

**six**

"Oh shit, is it broken?"

"Of course it's not broken," Coulson says, all maddeningly matter-of-factly because he's not the one with the pain. "Relax and let me see."

She tries to remember how much it hurt, to break a bone, in the past, but for some reason she can't. Maybe he's right. Maybe it's nothing that serious. She could have sworn she heard something crack when she miscalculated and ended up smashing her nose against the guy's forehead instead of the other way around.

Coulson is examining the wounds, pressing his thumb to Skye's chin to make her turn her head. The touch is both welcome and nerve-wrecking at the same time, she can't pretend it's not. Skye wishes and she doesn't that Simmons wasn't too busy on the field to treat her for such a minor injury.

"I'm sorry, boss," she says pathetically. "I thought I had him."

Coulson is shaking his head before she finishes speaking.

"The mission was a success and nobody got hurt," he tells her. Then gives her an amused look. "Mostly."

"Don't joke. It hurts."

"Maybe I can do something about that."

He takes one cotton swab and a small bottle from one of the drawers. He rolls up the sleeves of his shirt and gets in full medical mode, which Skye has seen him use on others but this is the first time she's on the receiving end personally. She's happy to be experiencing it right now, though, how Coulson has to stand in front of her to do this and the way she's sitting and how he basically has to position himself between her legs to get close enough to treat the injury and does it without hesitation.

He moves swiftly and carefully, touching her cheek slightly with the side of his hand, to get better access to her nose. He is being ridiculously competent, and that shouldn't be such an exciting quality in a guy but Skye thinks it is. She likes the way he's looking at her injury and not looking at her at all, brow all furrowed in concentration. It makes Skye feel like she's in good hands.

And whatever medicine he is putting on her nose it is some really great stuff because Skye feels the pain drain out of her almost as soon as that coolness touches her skin. Soon she can't even feel the spots where skin broke and then she can't feel the throbbing underneath anymore.

"I thought you were the resident expert on headbutting," Coulson teases but she doesn't care as long as he keeps on applying that wonderful ointment on her nose. "Better?"

"Yes. And then some bonus yes."

"Wait a moment," he tells her, brushing his hand across Skye's arm for a moment.

He walks to the medicine cabinet. Skye watches him rummage through it.

"This will help," he says, pressing some sort of adhesive bandage to her nose. Her skin feels numb and the sensation of Coulson's fingertips against it is really strange. "There."

He doesn't really step back, he's still in her space, as if he isn't really finished. He looks at her until it's kind of awkward.

"Mmm, great. I'm all set. The full treatment. Only thing missing was you kissing it better," she jokes. A bad, misguided joke. She genuinely meant to thank him, actually.

He places his hands on her shoulders gently and leans forward to kiss her nose.

She can't feel anything, of course, not on the injured area. She can, however, feel the warmth coming from Coulson now that his face is so close to hers. The gesture is weirdly neutral, considering it's a kiss, conducted in the same manner of everything he has done to tend to her wounds. It's also not neutral enough – Skye is _amazed_.

"Now you are all set, then," he tells her and Skye can't even begin to imagine what he could be thinking.

For a brief moment of insanity Skye wonders if she would be able to Indiana Jones him into kissing the rest of her face. Probably not. But the image that idea puts in her mind is certaintly affecting.

"Yeah, I guess I am."

He's still not moving.

She looks at him with wide eyes. Still unreadable. Like this is not the most amazing thing he's ever done. Skye tells herself not to freak out.

Her mind drifts to all the scenarios this scenerio might give birth to.

Like, well, even with Skye sitting on the gurney they are about the same height and Skye loves that for some reason, for some reason involving daydreaming about putting her arms around his neck right now.

"Very tall guys are overrated," she blurts out, looking at his eyes.

He looks confused. "What?"

She could be embarrassed but she is not. She doesn't know where she stands with him and that's okay.

"You know what? Actually, scratch that, guys who are _not you_ are overrated."

That's basically it so she leans forward to kiss him maybe (she doesn't have a plan) but Coulson moves away too quickly.

"How hard did you hit your head in that fight?" he asks her. He's rejecting her so why doesn't his voice sound more rejection-like?

She rolls her eyes at him. "Right, because the only explanation for me wanting you is brain damage."

"No," he says, smiling patiently. "But it might be the only explanation for you deciding to _tell me_."

"Right." Then she actually gets it. "Oh, oh."

"Yes."

"So you _knew_."

"Skye."

Well, of course he freaking knew.

"So you don't want anything to do with me," Skye says sharply. "You were just taking care of my wounds and being super weird about it. Yes, that makes sense, Director."

"I wouldn't say that."

"You wouldn't say you were being weird?"

"I wouldn't say I don't want anything to do with you," he says, simply, smoothly.

"Coulson... Are you messing with me?"

"Skye, take a moment. For a while there your life was in danger."

"Yes, it was," she says, feeling silly because she doesn't know what one thing has to do with the other.

"You do know how adrenaline works. Perhaps you shouldn't be making any important decisions when still riling from a mission."

So that's how it goes. She's not the coward in this scenario. That surprises her.

"What? Do you want me to take a nap and then put all this in writing?" she asks him.

"That's not what I meant."

"You kissed me," she points out. Technically he didn't but Skye counts on winning this by a small margin.

"Technically I didn't–"

"Perhaps _you_ shouldn't be making any important decisions _for me_."

Coulson nods and she can tell. She _can tell_.

He grabs her by the hips – fingertips actually digging into her and if Skye could spare any semi-coherent thought she would be thinking _wow_ – and brings his mouth, hard, against hers. There's actually tongue and heat and something Skye would categorize as _passion_ if she didn't think the word was so ridiculous. She has imagined this many times but this is nothing like that. She kisses him back, of course. She doesn't know what to do with her hands so she keeps them where she's sitting, fingertips crumpling the paper sheet underneath. Coulson runs his tongue, pitilessly, across the roof of her mouth, and Skye gets the courage to clench her legs, knees pressed against his sides, holding him close. Coulson doesn't seem to mind. It's so absurd it makes her want to start laughing right here, with his lips pressed against hers and his left hand splayed over her hipbone and then moving to rest on her back.

He breaks the kiss (Skye never wants to be the one to pull away first), with almost the same force as he started it, and she feels boneless at the sudden loss of contact and she realizes how brief the kiss has really been and how much she needs more, and soon.

But then he is grabbing her shoulders again.

" _Now_ I've kissed you," Coulson says, or rather declares, and then he kind of smirks and everything is bright and sharp around the edges and full of possibility. There will be "more" and there will be "soon", she can see it in his eyes.

"Ouch," she says, touching two fingers to her nose because in the giddiness of the moment she has somehow forgotten Coulson pressed his face against her and _ouch_.

"Sorry about that," he says, not really sorry about that. "But it'd put my mind at rest if you promised not to headbutt anyone else again. I don't think it's particularly effective and I don't enjoy patching you up like this."

She nods, looking him straight in the eye.

"Don't you worry. Those wild days of youth are behind me," she proclaims solemnly.

Coulson genuinely smiles at that.

"I can be careful, though," he tells her, obviously looking at her lips again, obviously asking for permission.

Skye fulfills a life-long (or a five-minutes-long) dream of hers and throws her arms around his neck. His body just fits so well between her arms and between her legs. Coulson just fits. _Yes please_ she replies against his hot mouth.

All in all, despite almost destroying her nose, if today was the last time ever Skye tried to break an enemy's face with her own face, it was totally worth it.


End file.
